There are walkers
at right angles
to their shadows,

soundless, moving
along. And then
they aren’t moving

anymore. I
guess I wouldn’t
know. I haven’t

stopped walking this
winter. Internally
or otherwise—

the mind that breaks
across like half
a snow drift—moisture

from the Gulf, they
say, while steely-
eyed, face-front against

the cold for now,
I stomp: no Gulf
but our own damn

lake effect and
space for wind to
get a running

start. I might be
the predicate
to lake and wind

as I feel I’m in
its grip; I’m in
its grip, it leads . . .

*

David Dodd Lee published six previous full-length books of poems, including Orphan, Indiana (Akron, 2010), The Nervous Filaments (Four Way Books, 2010), Abrupt Rural (New Issues, 2004) and Arrow Pointing North (Four Way, 2002). Sky Booths in the Breath Somewhere, The Ashbery Erasure Poems (BlazeVox) appeared as well in 2010. His new book, a selected of work previously unpublished in book form, The Coldest Winter On Earth, Poems 1998-2011, is just out from Marick Press.